Labor Gras 25th - 29th January 2010

I came back to Berlin just over a week ago now to work at Labor Gras, a studio in Kreuzberg on Paul Linke-Ufer Str. See the website here: www.laborgras.com. This week class was taught by Renate Graziadei and Arthur Stäldi.

The main focus of the week for me to do without doing. How can I move through the air and space around me with the clearest use of effort in the body to form a sequence of movement? Questions that arose by Renate centered upon decision making vs. following. Allowing body intelligence to find a pathway through the space through riding the weight through space. One observation made was that the further we are from being balanced, the more likely gravity takes over and falling engages continuous sequential movement. Renate said even when someone dies there is still a continuation of the movement through decay. The mind goes with the body as part of the flesh and blood, the matter.

This reminded me of a time I had working with this idea of following, letting the movement unravel with Merav Israel, Monika Smekot and Monica Deioanni in Craigmillar Arts Centre, Edinburgh. With Merav we were searching for the impulse to move, where is the impulse to move and once you have begun how are you carried through? How does this movement find a resolution and how does it begin again? Where is the beginning?